In the past sustainable and socially conscious fashion was a bit bland. The misconception must have been: “Eco-conscious people like the Earth so let’s make everything look earthy!” or “Let’s put a whale on it!”  There is nothing wrong with earth tones and t-shirts, plain or printed, but sometimes a shopper is looking for an item that provides more color or fit. Fashion designers have stepped in to fill the need but their items can be expensive. Eco-fashion is a certainly a trend but it’s not trendy: meaning it’s here to stay. 

Jackpot, a Danish brand of women’s clothing and accessories, emphasized their commitment to providing their customers with sustainable options that are colorful, wearable, and reasonably priced. There were nominated for the Danish Fashion Award for Best Sustainable Fashion Company and one of their stores was featured on “The Green Walk” during Copenhagen’s Fashion Festival this week.

Their Spring 2012 line will feature the Eriana dress made of polyester from recycled plastic bottles. Polyester has gotten a bad rap lately in the clothing world as a horrible, synthetic fabric but this dress doesn’t sound too bad: an “elegant grey dress adorned with the three exotic parrots”  “with an appealing print in dusty purple, cropped sleeves, and delicately formed waist” and made from 9 ½ plastic bottles!

The Jackpot online shop is selling an organic cotton tee with a three parrot print and with a bit of imagination -lengthen the shirt, give it a waist- and it’s what the dress will look like when it becomes available.  The parrot shirt is the company’s current “Donation Shirt.” Each season Jackpot sends a portion of the proceeds from their designated shirt to support a charity. This season proceeds will help school children in Bangladesh.

Other sustainable materials Jackpot uses in addition to organic cotton and plastic bottle polyester, include linen, Tencel (a tree fiber), and alpaca wool. They are also selling organic cotton EDUN Live t-shirts which is part of the eco-conscious clothing line started by U2’s Bono and his wife Ali Hewson in 2005.

Unfortunately, the Jackpot brand is mainly sold in Europe and while you can view their products online they do not ship to the United States.  There might be room for the brand in the United States if Jackpot is willing to compete with stores like H+M and Topshop. Not offering their products worldwide hasn’t hurt their sales though and “to date, Jackpot has sold 950,000 pieces of sustainable clothing and used 430 tonnes of organic cotton in the clothing collection.” That’s, literally, tons of environmentally-friendly clothes.